2023 August Newsletter
BCDT’s theme for 2023 ‘One act of kindness at a time, everyone matters’
We trust you are enjoying a safe and prosperous 2023. We appreciate your long-standing commitment to our organization and are humbled by it. Your continued support through the years allows us to continue to provide food, clothing, education, and health services.
Not only that, but your support has also inspired us to do more. Knowing that we have partners like you who believe in our mission and are willing to invest in our work motivates us to strive for excellence. We are honoured to have you as part of our team, and we look forward to continuing our work together.
Your contributions have helped us to make a real difference in the lives of the people we serve, and we hope that you will continue to support us in the future.
Village updates
Electricity at BCDT after 33 years!
Leigh, the CEO of BCDT has worked tirelessly since 2006 to organize electricity in the shacks. In April, her efforts finally came to fruition, as the power company arrived to install power poles and wire all the shacks in the village! An enormous step forward!
Most people in our society take electricity for granted, and cannot imagine living without it. Electricity improves lives in so many ways, large and small. Refrigeration preserves food and life saving medicines, preventing spoilage and disease. Kettles boil and sanitize water. Improved lighting benefits everyone, improving security, helping scholars study and learn. The home environment becomes safer, eliminating unhealthy smoke and accidental candle fires. Home chores are automated, mobile devices charged, entertainment options multiply. Prior to switching electricity on, our community lived in significant disadvantage, without all these.
Sadly, everyone in South Africa still suffers under constant and increasing loadshedding (pre-planned temporary power outages to prevent the country’s entire grid from collapsing), with power outages often up to 11 hours per day. Our villagers complain about loadshedding less than most, because when one is used to no electricity at all, even partial days are an enormous improvement!
Still, the impact of loadshedding is significant. Our students' marks suffer when they cannot study at night or do homework. So, at times we are back to torches and candles. The cost to run the village generators is prohibitive.
Food, bed, school, water, and electricity
Your generous contributions have made food, the most basic of human rights, a daily gift. The soup kitchen - our go-to - is always there, come rain or hail. Food security is never taken for granted - BCDT management understands and appreciates that daily food is made possible only with your generous donations, which enable two sponsored nutritionally dense meals per day.
The children’s resilience in the face of scarcity, particularly food scarcity, tugs our heartstrings. On occasion a meal may be delayed due to some unforeseen emergency. Yet the children wait patiently. No angry recriminations are heard, only respectful questions of when they might eat again. So, food security is never taken for granted. Thank you for this.
BCDT’s youth and children experienced an early Christmas gift when we received a donation of a month’s supply of meat. The children’s faces lit up with surprise, glee and appreciation, as back-to-back meals included meat, a rare treat indeed.
Poorer citizens often subsist on the nutritionally empty junk foods commonly available at retail outlets. And by necessity we provide food to fill empty stomachs and satiate hunger on a limited budget. This means foods like potatoes, beans, rice and yams are favoured, calorie-rich but nutritionally less so. Villagers have all been allocated garden space for growing their own food to supplement. BCDT needs to focus on gardening this year, to assist with seeds and equipment to plant more healthy food for the village’s children.
Crime – mental health issues, exposure to violence, substance abuse and/or governmental and parental neglect? BCDT deals with all of it
There is still a steady climb in crime related issues, mainly due to the extreme poverty that 95% of the village are experiencing, especially since Covid. When the lights drop for four hours during the night, it is too dangerous to go outside in the dark, or even let the dogs out for fear they may be poisoned by thieves. We have removed anything of value that could be traded or sold. Leigh, who heads all village maintenance, has been replacing copper piping in the buildings with plastic piping as it is stripped, because copper’s skyrocketing price has made it a juicy target for thieves.
Compassion or Justice? The jury is still out
When youth or adults from BCDT are the perpetrators of crimes against their neighbours outside the village, it presents a special problem for BCDT management to deal with. It is difficult to condemn youth who stand before us, unemployed and belligerent, their weary faces and thin frames reflecting their physical and psychological hunger. Their lives are a testament of unemployment and extreme poverty aggravated by a failing economy. We perform the time-consuming detective work of finding the stolen goods, which may or may not have been sold to someone else in the village. Then we appeal to neighbouring farmers to show compassion and not open criminal cases. BCDT attempts to prevent jailing youth for petty theft and vandalism, because South African jails can be grotesque hellholes that crush spirits rather than rehabilitate. For this reason, BCDT is sometimes reluctant to collaborate with the justice system for fear of compounding the problem.
Having said all the above, our village continues to grow and prosper! Children go to school, adults to work, babies are born, drama’s sorted, loved ones buried, joyful celebrations attended. BCDT management works extra hard just to help villagers live a “normal” life.
We continue to stretch our resources and renew our efforts, inspired by the families we serve. These families, rearing their children in extreme poverty and facing daily hardships and dangers, show incredible fortitude and resilience. This is where your generous donations go each month- they touch the lives of these children and families in very tangible ways. Though you may never meet them in person, your gifts leave your signature on this and future generations.
Knowledge gained through experience
BCDT’s theme for 2023 ‘One act of kindness at a time, everyone matters’, is still the best system for providing qualitative assistance. Every young person who becomes a contributing member of society represents one less person lost to a life of crime and tragedy. BCDT works on a risk ratio for the children and youth, intervening when emotional or material support improves their risk.
We see this strategy confirmed over the last 33 years as we witness the adults who grew up as children at BCDT. Our main take-away is never to underestimate any form of intervention, no matter how insignificant, or attempt to evaluate the outcome. We ‘just-do,’ the kindness shown has a magic of its own and will go where it is needed most.
School
Keeping our school open remains a top priority. Our school and our teachers are fully registered with our qualifications board SACE; our external auditors provide us regular unqualified audit reports. Nevertheless, our concept of assisting students for altruistic reasons, and not charging student fees, seems anathema to the education department, who repeatedly subject us to intrusive and irritating government forensic audits. So far, we have passed flying colours every time (perhaps to their chagrin).
Our teachers are required to be kind, considerate and never physically or verbally abusive to students. We see this approach vindicated as we produce confident students, well versed on their human rights. Dare we say, it is difficult to see the difference between them and their more privileged counterparts. When our BCDT children and youth are in public, people often ask where such respectful learners came from. All thanks to kind souls like you who keep the school going with your donations.
We continue to consider the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) – how we might someday incorporate this amazing technology in the classroom, and what impact it may have on students’ career opportunities.
BCDT’s school, MGS, is recognized for turning around troubled youth and/or expelled students. To witness an angry, violent, uncontrollable youth become a contributing member of society is to behold a miracle. The success of BCDT’S educational campus for families and caretakers continues to grow. We strive to keep young youth in school as long as possible, which reduces gang involvement, drug use, teenage pregnancy and prostitution. The children and their families are empowered to make decisions involving their own family structure, enabling a smoother transition to an economically independent unit, not completely beholden to welfare and BCDT.
Maintaining general health while living in poverty remains a problem
For people in poverty, the inadequate health system can slash life expectancy and destroy future dreams. In the hospitals we must bring our loved ones bedding and food, and clean them. The hospitals are run down and riddled with corruption, as are their supply chains. Hospitals often lose files, so we take the medical files home and photocopy them. Waiting times to see doctors can run into months. It is frustrating and sometimes life-threatening for the patient. BCDT has had to assist or save youth who need MRI’s, scans or x-rays. BCDT sometimes pays for a private consult, then we must convince the hospital doctors to use this information.
A 15 year-old village boy was involved in a tragic accident last November. He had taken a lift from a truck driver when a speeding motorbike crashed into the truck. He was thrown through the windscreen, shattering his leg. Initially the government hospital suggested amputation, but finally reconstructed his leg with steel pins. After several weeks he was sent home without any physio or counseling. He approached BCDT for assistance because of evidence of ongoing infection. The family was informed that the initial operation was not successful and that he must return in September for a second operation. The trauma of the accident and injury may well have lifelong repercussions for this poor boy.
The medical service we receive is seen as the norm, however the government admits that the health system is in serious trouble and they are trying to upgrade. Even more shocking are recent incidents where paramedics are robbed and assaulted, and ambulances stolen while on a call-out. It seems that the new generation will have to try to save our country.
Corruption has become a pandemic affecting every single government department, leaving all citizens vulnerable. When whistleblowers report the corruption, they either withdraw their allegations or are murdered. One such high profile case was the murder of a Guateng Department of Health official Babita Deokaran, who was murdered after reporting R850 million in suspicious payments to companies, politicians, and individuals.
In Conclusion: Despite the often-surreal challenges facing BCDT, we press on with acts of kindness, great and small. Why? Because the children and youth are willing to persevere, and they motivate us. With such strength as theirs, who are we to give up?
A BCDT gallery view of greetings to you
